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Re: Plural, Minimal Number

... be used ... indicating that ... It s often easier to get ideas than jugde whether they re good or not. In Talmit I have a paucal marked by _-jo_, a

Message 1 of 20
, Jul 1, 2010

> Among the last few things I've been trying to decide about TIAL (Third IAL)
> is whether it will have an optional noun plural or not, how that would be
> marked (affix, reduplication, etc.), and whether full reduplication might

be used

> for something else. I had a non-standard idea: a prefix on numbers

indicating that

> the number is a _minimal_ value, e.g. min-2 = 2 or more = typical plural.

It's often > easier to get ideas than jugde whether they're good or not.

In Talmit I have a paucal marked by _-jo_, a greater plural marked by _-mi_;
and the idea of a minimal/maximal number is expressed by adding _-t_, so:
_tal_ 'word', _taljo_ 'some words, few words, a couple of words', _taljot_
'a minimal amount of words', _talmi_ 'many words', _talmit_ 'maximal amount
of words (in some context)' or 'all the words' (collective plural).
Reduplicating those as a prefix is an intensifier: _jotaljo_ 'very few
words', _mitalmi_ 'very many words', _mihtalmit_ 'all the words there are'
(somewhat poetic).

The idea about prefixing numbers is actually very interesting, I think it
could be a way to express both an exact number and whether it is too small
or too large in the context, e.g. in my language: _un_ '5', _*untaljo_ '5
words, but few in the context; just 5 words', _*untalmi_ '5 words, but many
in the context'. Hm...

And reduplication is awesome, who doesn't love reduplication? Hence _taltal_
'a lot of various words'.

Eric Christopherson

... St at imcets does.

Message 2 of 20
, Jul 1, 2010

On Jul 1, 2010, at 12:41 PM, Dana Nutter wrote:

> FWIW: I'm still toying with Deini's orthography. This time it's <ǰ>
> in favor of <ɉ> for /ʤ/ keeping things more consistent by using a
> hacek, and probably <c> in favor of <ħ> for /x/, pushing /ʧ/ to <č>.
> I think "electri" would look much better than "eleħtri" anyway though
> I know of no natlang using <c> for /x/.

St'at'imcets does.

Jeffrey S. Jones

On Thu, 1 Jul 2010 08:23:35 -0500, Adam Walker ... Feel free to use it :) (you and anyone else). The fact that you think it appropriate

>
> Well I like your idea enough that I think I will steal...erm...borrow
> it for one of my exolangs! Adam

Feel free to use it :) (you and anyone else). The fact that you think it
appropriate for an exolang suggests that it shouldn't go into an auxlang like
TIAL. In fact, I may just skip having grammaticalized plural marking.

--
Jeff

> On 6/30/10, Jeffrey S. Jones <qiihoskeh@...> wrote:
> >
> > I had a non-standard idea: a prefix on numbers indicating that the
> > number is a _minimal_ value, e.g. min-2 = 2 or more = typical plural.
> > It's often easier to get ideas than jugde whether they're good or not.

On Thu, 1 Jul 2010 08:23:35 -0500, Adam Walker <carraxan@...>
wrote:
>
> Well I like your idea enough that I think I will steal...erm...borrow
> it for one of my exolangs! Adam

Feel free to use it :) (you and anyone else). The fact that you think it
appropriate for an exolang suggests that it shouldn't go into an auxlang like
TIAL. In fact, I may just skip having grammaticalized plural marking.

--
Jeff

> On 6/30/10, Jeffrey S. Jones <qiihoskeh@...> wrote:
> >
> > I had a non-standard idea: a prefix on numbers indicating that the
> > number is a _minimal_ value, e.g. min-2 = 2 or more = typical plural.
> > It's often easier to get ideas than jugde whether they're good or not.

Adam Walker

Which one? The isolating one with switch reference marking? The one with the kitchen sink phonology and a right to left abugida inspired by Hindi? The one with

Message 5 of 20
, Jul 1, 2010

Which one? The isolating one with switch reference marking? The one
with the kitchen sink phonology and a right to left abugida inspired
by Hindi? The one with 7 tenses and 4th person pronouns? The one with
11 tones and no consonants? The one with no transitive verbs? Adam

> On Jul 1, 2010, at 12:41 PM, Dana Nutter wrote:
>> FWIW: I'm still toying with Deini's orthography. This time it's <ǰ>
>> in favor of <ɉ> for /ʤ/ keeping things more consistent by using a
>> hacek, and probably <c> in favor of <ħ> for /x/, pushing /ʧ/ to <č>.
>> I think "electri" would look much better than "eleħtri" anyway though
>> I know of no natlang using <c> for /x/.
>
> St'at'imcets does.

I should have been clearer and stated no popular european language.
Deini is essentially European, mainly Germanic but I don't mind
drawing from other influences, or even having a few unique features.
I think I'm still going to go back to <c> for /x/ because it does a
better job of preserving the etymologies. It's also makes typography
a bit easier with <č> being much more available than <ħ>. The
affricates /ʧ ʤ/ are fairly uncommon in Deini. So I'd rather have
them with diacritics than a more common sound like /x/.

Jeffrey S. Jones

On Thu, 1 Jul 2010 23:56:12 -0500, Adam Walker ... Thank you, Adam. I ve confirmed that none of those features occur in TIAL. I wonder

>Which one? The isolating one with switch reference marking? The one
>with the kitchen sink phonology and a right to left abugida inspired
>by Hindi? The one with 7 tenses and 4th person pronouns? The one with
>11 tones and no consonants? The one with no transitive verbs? Adam

Thank you, Adam.
I've confirmed that none of those features occur in TIAL. I wonder though,
how many of them could be placed into the same exolang ....

>On Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 12:54 PM, Larry Sulky <larrysulky@...> wrote:
>
>>> Among the last few things I've been trying to decide about TIAL (Third
>>> IAL) is whether it will have an optional noun plural or not, how that would
>>> be marked (affix, reduplication, etc.), and whether full reduplication might
>>> be used for something else.
>>>
>>> I had a non-standard idea: a prefix on numbers indicating that the
>>> number is a _minimal_ value, e.g. min-2 = 2 or more = typical plural. It's
>>> often easier to get ideas than jugde whether they're good or not.
>
>> I find a morpheme meaning "1 or more" or even "at least some; not zero" to
>> be more useful. It indicates imprecision in the number without guaranteeing
>> that it's certainly not 1. Makes it easy to avoid phrases like "one or more"
>> or "do not leave your bag(s) Â unattended". Â --larry
>
>SASXSEK nouns are numerically unmarked. When necessary the the
>adjective/numeral "meni" (="more than 1") can be used to show
>plurality and of course "ieni" (="one") for singularity. There are
>derivatations that can be made from "men" such as "menisi" (="a lot"),
>"menimi" (="a few/several"). I suppose I could have created a
>"greater than" morpheme and attached it to one as a way of making a
>plural too, that way there could be variations like "greater than 5"
>should someone find that useful.

I've decided to go with bonco X to mean at least 2 or 3 X; it will be optional,
but never used with numbers, so I don't think it counts as a grammatical plural
(unlike a morphological plural).

>For Deini I did something a little different. Nouns do have plurals
>but the plural forms are only used in the absence of a numeral,
>otherwise the singular form is used.
>
>jabÉ™l = apple
>jabÉ™lyÉ‰ = apples
>ro jabÉ™l = six apples
>
>FWIW: I'm still toying with Deini's orthography. This time it's <Ç°>
>in favor of <É‰> for /Ê¤/ keeping things more consistent by using a
>hacek, and probably <c> in favor of <Ä§> for /x/, pushing /Ê§/ to <Ä�>.
>I think "electri" would look much better than "eleÄ§tri" anyway though
>I know of no natlang using <c> for /x/.

Internal consistency is one reason why 2 languages with similar phonologies
can have different orthographies or romanizations (besides just whim).
Neographies seem to be a different matter.

--
Jeff

<deinx nxtxr>

... This is mostly a matter of my own personal choice, but part of my choice is to give it a bit of a natlang feel to where it actually seems to fit in

Message 9 of 20
, Jul 8, 2010

On 7/8/10 12:03 AM, Jeffrey S. Jones wrote:

>> FWIW: I'm still toying with Deini's orthography. This time
>> it's<Ç°> in favor of<É‰> for /Ê¤/ keeping things more consistent
>> by using a hacek, and probably<c> in favor of<Ä§> for /x/,
>> pushing /Ê§/ to<Ä>. I think "electri" would look much better than
>> "eleÄ§tri" anyway though I know of no natlang using<c> for /x/.
>
> Internal consistency is one reason why 2 languages with similar
> phonologies can have different orthographies or romanizations
> (besides just whim). Neographies seem to be a different matter.

This is mostly a matter of my own personal choice, but part of my choice
is to give it a bit of a natlang feel to where it actually seems to fit
in somewhere amongst the natlangs it's drawing upon.

It look like I've finally found an orthography that I'm pretty happy
with after making those changes above. The only reservations I still
have are for <ǰ>, and that's not because I don't like it but because
it's a character that's not present in some fonts. <ǧ> also is lacking
coverage in a few fonts but seems to have better support than <ǰ>. At
this point, I'm just tired of changing it and the hacek keeps it
consistent with <č> <š> <ž> rather than what I had before which was some
haceks and some strokethroughs.

Now if only I could get the pronouns to where I'm happy with them. Just
changed 1S.NOM to "jai" instead of "žo".

>>> by using a hacek, and probably<c> in favor of<Ã„Â§> for /x/,
>>> pushing /ÃŠÂ§/ to<Ã„Â�>. I think "electri" would look much better than
>>> "eleÃ„Â§tri" anyway though I know of no natlang using<c> for /x/.
>>
>> Internal consistency is one reason why 2 languages with similar
>> phonologies can have different orthographies or romanizations
>> (besides just whim). Neographies seem to be a different matter.
>
>This is mostly a matter of my own personal choice, but part of my choice
>is to give it a bit of a natlang feel to where it actually seems to fit
>in somewhere amongst the natlangs it's drawing upon.

That's another reason then. e.g. Wenedyk looks like a weird Polish dialect until
the Latin words are recognized.

>It look like I've finally found an orthography that I'm pretty happy
>with after making those changes above. The only reservations I still
>have are for <Ç°>, and that's not because I don't like it but because
>it's a character that's not present in some fonts. <Ç§> also is lacking
>coverage in a few fonts but seems to have better support than <Ç°>. At
>this point, I'm just tired of changing it and the hacek keeps it
>consistent with <Ä�> <Å¡> <Å¾> rather than what I had before which
> was some haceks and some strokethroughs.

Both are lacking on my computer except for special fonts I've downloaded,
such as Thryomanes or Doulos SIL. So I tend to stick with ASCII, Latin-1, or
Latin-A. The Ampkohlaš romanization has <Ä�> <Å¡> <Å¾>, but uses
<ŋ> for [ŋ], not n-hacek.

>Now if only I could get the pronouns to where I'm happy with them. Just
>changed 1S.NOM to "jai" instead of "Å¾o".

:)

--
Jeff

<deinx nxtxr>

... I already have a system that won t fit into Latin-1, 2 or 3 alone. I do stick with ASCII for my auxlangs but this is a personal language so I m avoiding

Message 11 of 20
, Jul 8, 2010

On 7/8/10 1:40 PM, Jeffrey S. Jones wrote:

>> It look like I've finally found an orthography that I'm pretty happy
>> with after making those changes above. The only reservations I still
>> have are for<Ç°>, and that's not because I don't like it but because
>> it's a character that's not present in some fonts.<Ç§> also is lacking
>> coverage in a few fonts but seems to have better support than<Ç°>. At
>> this point, I'm just tired of changing it and the hacek keeps it
>> consistent with<Ä> <Å¡> <Å¾> rather than what I had before which
>> was some haceks and some strokethroughs.
>
> Both are lacking on my computer except for special fonts I've downloaded,
> such as Thryomanes or Doulos SIL. So I tend to stick with ASCII, Latin-1, or
> Latin-A. The Ampkohlaš romanization has<Ä> <Å¡> <Å¾>, but uses
> <ŋ> for [ŋ], not n-hacek.

I already have a system that won't fit into Latin-1, 2 or 3 alone. I do
stick with ASCII for my auxlangs but this is a personal language so I'm
avoiding digraphs because I don't care much for them. Unicode has
enough support on my personal equipment that I'm not deterred too much
from using it for this language, especially since I've already made one
compromise by deprecating the native script. The problem I'm having
isn't encoding just lack of font support for these particular characters.

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